A well is drilled into the earth to reach subsurface geologic formation(s) from which oil, gas, water, or other minerals can be produced to the earth's surface. Often the minerals have to be artificially lifted or otherwise pumped from inside the wellbore to the earth's surface. In the normal maintenance of the well, the pipe and other apparatus associated therewith both in the wellbore and at the earth's surface are removed for replacement, repair, or other maintenance work. This is called a "workover" of a well. The apparatus employed to work over a well is often called a pulling unit because it is used to pull pipe and other equipment out of the wellbore for maintenance.
Sometimes during a workover fluids in the wellbore necessarily come out of the wellbore with the apparatus being removed therefrom and must be disposed of in an environmentally acceptable manner rather than letting them spill onto the earth's surface around the well.
Accordingly, it is desirable to have a spill containment system which can be employed during workover or any other type of well service project.
Since wells can be widely spaced apart over a very large area, a normal pulling unit is very mobil and self-contained. Therefore, it is also desirable that a well service spill containment system be highly portable, compact, and easily deployed by a small number of personnel.
Accordingly, it is an object of this invention to provide a new and improved well service spill containment system. It is another object to provide a fluid spill deflection device for use with a mobil pulling unit during a well workover.
Other aspects, objects and advantages of this invention will be apparent to those skilled in the art from this disclosure and the appended claims.